My apologies if this has been posted/discussed elsewhere on this forum. (Highlights are mine.)
Toxic Trains - Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You
There is nothing more haunting than the sound of a train whistle. There is also nothing more terrifying. Thanks to federal resistance to regulating transport of toxic chemicals, residents of rail hub cities across the country don’t know if the trains they hear are carrying harmless cargo or something more deadly.
Not that the labeling on the rail cars gives anything away. Contents are identified only by codes that require a guidebook to decipher. It makes for scary reading.
Unlike the dubious weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, these are the real deal and the trains that carry them are vulnerable to human error, mechanical breakdown or terrorist acts.
Although most rail cargo is transported without incident, an accident could be catastrophic. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory estimates that if “the wind is in the right direction, 100,000 people could easily die” from the toxic cloud emitted by a ruptured tank.
Another issue: security. Like our nation’s ports, rail yards and toxic chemical plants are woefully under-protected. Stephen Flynn, senior fellow at the Council in Foreign Relations notes, “there are about…15,000 facilities in this country that make chemicals…but only about one-sixth of those are required to have security plans. [
If they succeed, how will Washington get the chlorine to clean their drinking water?
It is delivered in tankcars…so if they divert the tankcars…then it will have to be trucked into the water treatment plant…what a lovely thought, 30 or so tank trucks a day driving in rush hour traffic in the heart of Washington DC…talk about your mobil bomb!
These people are radical. There is no other way around it. Supreme “nimby” folks driving their Volvos and preaching to the rest of us how to live our lives.
Chemicals are a way of life.
Their solutions of alternative routes will place the chemicals in someone else’s path. Lets see…whom do they wish to endanger…which life is less important than theirs?
I am not going to go political on this forum, but frankly I have had enough of the Bush bashing for Katrina. Mistakes were made frm the locals, state, and feds. It was one heck of a storm. New Orleans sits in a bathtub.
911 was an enormous wake up call for us. I think we are now dozing again, not realizing what our world is. Take a look on this forum at the folks who are upset because their freedom to take a picture of a train is denied. Ok, what do you want…freedom to take a train picture or protection from terrorist activities?
MP173 had it right - these bozos want the problem moved somewhere away from them, no matter who else it endangers and how much it increases transportation costs. And, immediately after hazardous materials on trains were rerouted away from them and the herds of tanker trucks started gathering, they would demand stricter regulations or bans on trucks carrying HM. It reminds me of California making emissions regulations more strict for powerplants, which caused the powerplants to be built outside California - it was the perfect solution from their point of view, the problem was exported to somewhere else.
The blockheads in DC city government are going to spend a potload of money (probably Federal grants, they wouldn’t want to cut down the amount of their funds available for waste, fraud, graft and corruption) “studying” ways to reroute hazardous rail cargo around the District. Never mind that if a terrorist took a wrong turn and ended up in some neighborhoods in DC HE would run screaming in terror, because his life expectancy would be very, very short.
Toxic trains comeing to a neighborhood near you…Guess what, They are already here and have been for a long time. Yet these whackos probably couldn’t name more then 1 or 2 (if any) actual accidents involving hazmat. Heck, I’m a railfan and I don’t think I could name more then a half dozen or so off the top of my head.
I remember being on one of my “rides” with the crew of the Magma Turn local back in ‘92, we went to Magma to switch out the copper mine lines there (Magma Railroad and Copper Basin Railroad). Among copper ingots to pick up, were tank cars of sulphuric acid that was recovered from the copper smelting process. The conductor told me to stand away from the cars as the train was being switched - stating that it wasn’t out of the ordinary for a valve at the top of the tank to allow acid to spray 50’ into the air during a hard couple. The acid (hazmat code 1830) was not full strength, but was strong enough to melt the flesh off of your arm on contact. Anyways, this train would normally have anywhere from 2 to 15 of these tanks on it on the inbound run to Phoenix, and it ran nightly 6 days a week.
In many, many years of this train running and not having one accident, it’s a testament to how safely these chemicals can be transported by rail.
Exactly. These media types are just trying to sensationalize this stuff. Really, what are the odds of a hazmat disaster happening in a major population center. I would be willing to bet it’s way over a million to one.
All our political leaders are doing is trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle…and it is way too late for that.
Come on guys, the very machine and internet you are using right now to read this thread allows them to sit in their tent and gather almost any information about trains, planes, ships, traffic patterns, address, phone numbers, products made, products sold, shipped and stored, when where and how…
A few hundred dollars in cell phones, one or two laptops…
It isn’t about physically being present, it is all about gathering the needed information to perform the task they want…and it is all here for free.
You can no more close the to outside forces than you can stop the planet from turning.
The only real solution is either take the fight to them, not a police action, but a real, all out war with the intent of conquering and occupying their country, or…
Find a way to change their fundamental way of thinking about the , fix what ever it is that make them hate us, or our country.
Option one will take billions of dollars, and years to complete…opti
Wow. A few weeks ago a train went through with lots of those tanks on it carrying sulphuric acid. I was probably no more than a couple yards away from them, standing on the station platform. After reading this, it’s kind of creepy to think what could happen if one of those has a leak…
Keep in mind the majority of train tracks are NOT near population centers…most of this stuff travels thousands of miles out in the boonies, and a few in populated areas.
Yes, some of it is pretty awful, if it gets out of the tankcar.
LPG, Sulfuric acid, hydrocyanictic acid, caustic soda…and Trees methyl-ethyl awful…but tank cars are pretty stout; it takes a lot to bang a hole in one.
The “tank” you see is only a sheet metal cover…like a thermos bottle, there is an inner tank, covered by insulation, braced and protected by the outer tank.
Short of tearing the outlet valve off, you can pretty much beat the tar out of them and they hold.
If you see one”spraying” into the air, you can pretty much bet it is the overfill or safety valve letting off the excess pressure…and yes, if you happen to be right there, it will get on you…which is why we are taught to stand at least ten feet back from the cars unless our job demands us to be closer.
You only real option is to ship it in trucks, on your roads, with your wife, husband or kids driving right next to it…not really an option from my point of view.
The average American has absolutely no clue how many items in their daily lives involve chemicals. They have no idea how any industry works, nor do the schools bother to teach important common sense items like this.
Simple ignorance. And ignorance breeds fear. The only solution is education - unfortunately, we don’t take education seriously in this great country of ours.
Yep, it’s alot easier for a train to derail than for a truck to get in an accident. If you don’t believe me look at the statistics, or watch your local news.
YEA RIGHT! Even here in the “middle of nowhere” (Nebraska) there are plenty of car accidents to go around. If there are as many vehicle accidents here in a smaller city, I can’t imagine what could happen with 30+ tankers in a large city [V].
